Ener1 critics sing Solyndra tune

The Chapter 11 filing of battery maker Ener1 is inspiring a familiar routine from the Beltway playbook.

First, Republicans send out a flood of press releases denouncing the Obama administration for wasting DOE money on yet another failed clean energy company. (Bonus points if they invoke the phrase “the next Solyndra.”)

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Then, administration-friendly news articles and blog posts start to appear — pointing out that prominent Republicans had also supported government funding for the same type of technology.

In the case of Ener1, the hypocrisy card started surfacing Friday with stories noting that two leading Indiana Republicans — Gov. Mitch Daniels and Sen. Dick Lugar — had both expressed support for an Indiana plant run by Ener1’s EnerDel subsidiary. (Ener1 owns 80.5 percent of EnerDel, which received a $118.5 million grant from DOE as part of the 2009 stimulus.)

Daniels delivered the GOP’s official response Tuesday night to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, and he was many Republicans’ favorite choice to be a 2012 presidential contender.

But before then — as shown in a 2010 video on Ener1’s YouTube channel — Daniels helped foster a joint venture between Ener1 and the Chinese auto parts manufacturer Wanxiang.

Ener1 executives called Daniels “our advocate-in-chief in Washington and on missions abroad.”

“Not many governors have the power to open doors halfway around the world,” said Charles Gassenheimer, chairman and CEO of Ener1.

In 2008, Indiana’s economic development arm got into the money game itself, offering EnerDel up to $7.1 million in tax credits and up to $58,000 in training grants, the company reported.

Lugar, meanwhile, spoke in February 2008 at at EnerDel’s Indianapolis headquarters, saying that “people appreciate” the risk the company took in developing electric vehicle batteries.

Supporters of the Obama administration’s clean energy efforts were quick to jump on the seeming incongruity. “Fox News is not going to be happy about this,” the environmental website Grist commented Friday.

Still, the involvement of two GOP figures in promoting EnerDel’s technology hasn’t stopped congressional Republicans from letting loose on the Obama administration after Ener1 filed for bankruptcy protection.

“One bankruptcy may be a fluke, two could be coincidence, but three is a trend,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who is leading the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigation into Solyndra.

Daniels’s office did not return requests for comment Friday, while Lugar’s office called it natural for the senator to support the idea of a home-state company getting a share of federal stimulus money that was going to be spent somewhere. (Lugar had voted against the stimulus bill itself.)